A twisted version of Groundhog Day.

With my last post, Owen's mom Michelle left me a sweet comment about sending the groundhog our way to tell him to bring on spring. Well, when I read that all I could think of was the movie Groundhog Day. This winter has felt a bit like that. Wake up, and we're doing the same thing everyday. It just keeps happening, like a bad dream. In my sleep deprived, weird mind, I thought the comparison was accurate. Matthew is stuck on Groundhog Day.

Matthew had a fairly rough night. He was restless all afternoon and evening. He finally fell asleep around 1:30 A.M in my arms. At 5:00 he woke me with a coughing fit and then vomited. When he gets in a vomiting cycle, someplace in his brain the wires are crossed and his brain tell him not to breathe. He does this at home, too, and when he is done vomiting, he will resume breathing. In the meantime, he turns a very lovely (not really) shade of blue. Well the nurse experienced this first hand last night and Matthew sure caught her attention. I assured her he had done this before. He also had a temperature at the time, so she administered some more motrin, along with some zofran to help the vomiting. His lungs sounded very weezy and crackly so she had radiology come up early and do a chest x-ray. In the meantime, he vomited 4 more times, and turned blue with each one. His oxygen saturations would dip down to 30%. After his temperature came down, he was able to rest.

The doctor came through early and stated that his right upper lobe of his lung looked hazy and they think at some point over the last week he may have aspirated a bit. That could very easily happen with all of the vomiting he has done. They have restarted his CPT, which is a treatment I have spoke about earlier that helps break up "junk" (for lack of a better word) in his lungs and helps him cough it out. He is still on breathing treatments, and getting tylenol and ibuprofin around the clock. He is on oxygen, but they have restarted his feeding again. He is on getting IV antibiotics and IV fluid. He will stay in the hospital until they feel he is more stable and can go home.

He has rested better today and is currently doing better than last night this time. We will pray for a restful night.

Michelle G., one of my dear friends that I met in Omaha while we were in the PICU with our babies together (you may remembering me to ask you to pray for Olivia while we were there...Michelle is Olivia mommy.) came to sit with Matthew today while I ran home to get a couple things done this afternoon. Thank-you Michelle!! This evening Megan also performed in the talent show at her school, so Steve (who is still pretty under the weather also) came and sat with Matthew so I could take Megan to the talent show. She did so good! A friend taped her for me and I can't wait to show it to you all! She did so good!

Thank you to everyone who is supporting us yet again through another illness! The prayers, phone calls, texts, comments and help with the other kiddos are so much appreciated. We are blessed with so many wonderful friends and family!

We are anxiously awaiting warmer weather and less germs!!

Love to all!

Jill

Here, again.

I am getting sick of blogging from the hospital. It's getting old. I hate watching my baby in pain and struggling to breathe. Blech.

It's respiratory again. It started Friday morning.He was coughing so hard, he started vomiting, and once he starts vomiting, he can't stop. Also, in 1 and 1/2 hours he went from not needing any oxygen, to not being able to keep his oxygen levels up on 4 liters. His heart rate had also gone from 145 to 215 over that course of an hour and a half. Then he had a huge seizure. It was one unlike he'd ever had. I wouldn't have even known he was seizing except I noticed he was hardly breathing. I pinched him (hard!!!, sorry Matthew) and he didn't respond. He was breathing 4-6 times a minute. I ran and got his diastat and administered it. But I couldn't keep his oxygen up, even after he started being responsive, and then he started vomiting again. As much as I wanted to drive him myself, I didn't feel like I could risk him aspirating in the back seat. So, I broke down and called 911. We live 3 blocks from the station, and they were here lickety split. They got about a 30 second history and they literally scooped him up and took off.

Once in the ER, they drew labs, and called anesthesia to start his IV. He got it the first try (thank you, Jesus). With both tylenol and ibuprofin, his temp was still 103.8.

We were admitted to the ped's unit after blood work showed it was a bacterial pneumonia. IV fluids, IV antibiotics and medicine to keep him from throwing up were started.

He had a restful night, and day today; but a pretty rough afternoon. He is not vomiting anymore, but spiked a temp this morning. He has had two rounds of IV antibiotics.

To top it off, Steve is home with the kids, but also started with respiratory stuff last night. He's been pretty sick all day. Good thing the kids can pour cereal, and reheat pizza. And especially good that they're great kids and let their daddy get some rest.

I will hope to go home tomorrow now that we have antibiotics on board, and are tolerating feedings. I can't stand sitting here. They're great here, but seriously; we've done our share of hospital sitting this winter.

I cannot wait for better weather. I'm opening my windows and airing out the house with the hope of killing all these nasty bugs. This has been one of the longest winters! Poor Matthew has caught every bug within a 10 mile radius.

Crafty girl: part 3

Megan had been asking me for some time now to knit her a hat. I had used this pattern to make a couple hats for Christmas gifts and had also made a smaller version of this hat for Matthew when he was a baby. I love this pattern because it's easy, and it has stunning results. I especially love the beads that are worked into it.
So just yesterday, I finished it. (Sitting in the hospital with a sick baby helps me progress quickly with projects like this)

And here is my favorite girl modeling it for me!

My other crafty girl posts can be found here and here

Cheery {with my} O's

Full-time job

Sorry for the lack of updates. We are still alive here. Matthew actually came home from the hospital on Wednesday morning. He was still very sick, but the doctors thought he was on the up-swing. The rest of the day he was very uncomfortable and coughing a lot, so I decided to wait until Thursday morning to head to my parents for my grandpa's funeral. Wednesday night things got worse. Matthew seemed so agitated to me. He continued to work harder and harder to breathe. I finally put some oxygen (we have this at home for emergencies) on him to see if that would help. It did for a bit, but by morning, I didn't feel right leaving him with Steve so I could go to the funeral until I had a doctor check him out. I called the office and they told me to bring him right over. When we got to the doctors office, Matthew's oxygen saturation was 72%. (Normal is above 90, but ideally you want it as close to 100% as you can). They quickly put him on more oxygen, gave him a breathing treatment and wanted to send him by ambulance to the hospital. I talked them into letting me take him if Steve came over to the office and drove us, so that I could keep an eye on him from the back seat.

Let me interject here and say that the day was made even worse by the fact that I missed my grandpa's funeral. That was rough. I was torn in two directions and I couldn't be in both places.

Within a couple of hours of being at the hospital, it was clear to see that the poor boy just needed more oxygen and we probably could've avoided another hospital stay if we would've known how much extra oxygen he really needed. Thursday night he had some issues with vomiting, and they tried to start an IV again, and it took 4 pokes by anesthesia to get it in. And then it only lasted for an hour before it blew. I asked to restart his feeds at 1/2 the rate instead of re-poking him. The anesthesiologist said he didn't really feel like he had anywhere left to poke anyway.

Friday ended up being a quiet day, and they let us go home Saturday. But, in many ways, are house now feels like a (temporary) hospital. Matthew is still on oxygen. We have this huge oxygen machine (sorry can't remember the name of it) that sits in our living room, and 100 feet of tubing so we can take him throughout the house. He is also hooked to a pulse oximeter so I know what his oxygen level is. Matthew gets breathing treatments 4 times a day, CPT (chest percussion therapy) 4 times a day, and meds three times a day. I am running the role of nurse and respiratory therapist full time in my house. All while having our house on the market (and private showings multiple times a week), and taking care of the rest of my family. Hence the reason the blog has set silent.

I just want to say how thankful I am for my nursing back round. I'm sure a person could learn to do all of this, but boy oh boy, am I glad to have a jump start on things. And I'm not sad that I'm doing it, nor do I see it as a burden. I am so thrilled to be doing this from my home, instead of sitting in a hospital room!!

We have weaned Matthew down to 1/2 liter of oxygen at night and 1/4 liter during the day. His cough is getting more loose and he is able to clear his self better; I think we are on the downhill slope of this respiratory junk. Once we get rid of the oxygen and sat monitor, life will get more back to normal. In the meantime; my days are filled with medical treatments and lots of snuggling.

Grandpa Halverson

My Grandpa, seen here with my Grandma and their 6 great-grandchildren, passed peacefully into rest yesterday . We'll miss you grandpa!

The grand tour

Matthew has decided to do a tour of hospitals. October and November was Childrens in Omaha; November and December was Childrens' in St Paul. February is St. Elizabeth's which is a bit closer to home for us and since I work here, it makes things a little easier.

Last week, Matthew started sleeping; ALOT. He was only a wake 1-2 hours a day. By Friday, I figured I better at least let someone know what was going on. His doctors in MN suggested I give 2 ounces of juice to see if his blood sugar was low. Since he is on the ketogenic diet; and gets very little sugar, this can be a concern. I gave Matthew 2 ounces of juice and he woke up almost immediately and then preceded to be awake all night. Dr. D had also requested that I give him a phone call on Saturday with an update. When I told him that things were looking better, he said; "well he's probably getting sick, keep a close eye on him". When your body is fighting something, it uses more glucose than normal and since he is getting very limited glucose, he most likely had a low blood sugar.

Sunday morning he woke up coughing and vomiting. He continued to cough and vomit most of the morning; so I called our on-call pediatrician for some cough syrup. She wanted to see him the office that day instead (our office has "sick" Saturday and Sunday hours). By the time she had seen him Sunday; he had vomited 40 times, and was vomiting continuously in the office. She wanted him admitted immediately. And I didn't get my cough syrup I wanted, either.

It took 8 pokes to get his IV in, and the last 5 were from the anesthesiologist. He is one of my favorite anesthesiologists too. He worked so hard and so patiently but Matthew was sooo dehydrated. When we put Matthew on the scale, he had lost a pound since he had been in the doctors office on Wednesday, all from dehydration. Sunday, they gave over 800 cc's of fluid before he had a wet diaper. They were wanting to put a catheter in him; but I requested that they just be a bit more patient. As soon as he caught up fluid wise, he has been fine.

I can do a lot of things for Matthew at home, but when he won't keep fluids down, I am sunk. And Matthew just doesn't have the reserve to be able to tolerate being dehydrated.

This hospital stay does NOT have me worried. If he were one of my other kids, he would be at home, sucking on popsicles and ice chips, getting room temp baths and lots of love. But like I said; Matthew's body cannot tolerate being off balance, so here we are.

Today he's still coughing a lot, but not so hard that he is vomiting. They have his feedings back at 2/3 the amount of normal. And there is talk of letting him go home late tonight or tomorrow if they can get him to tolerate full feedings and his medications.

New pictures

Last week we took new pictures of the kids. It was definitely needed, it'd been awhile!! So check my sidebar for some cute new pics of all four kiddos!

Go, Matthew, Go!

When I posted about Matthew's new chair, I got a comment on that post from Barbara over at therextras. She encouraged me to try to get Matthew more upright, even if it was for minutes a day. Well, I took her comment to heart. I've been getting Matthew as upright as he can be and then waiting until he would tire from it, and then tilting the chair back just a bit until he would tire from that incline, and I'd keep doing that until he got to a place where it wasn't so much work for him to sit up. I looked at those pictures on my blog the other day; and I can't believe the difference he's made in just a short time. Here's some pictures from last month and pictures I took the other day.

And here is a side view: this perhaps speaks more.

Matthew is tolerating being this upright for about 15 minutes, before his head gets a little heavy for him. I'm surprised how quickly we've seen results!!

Rights of passage

Mason has finally entered the "I get money from the tooth fairy" era. He has been waiting soooo long. It didn't take him long to go from "I have a loose tooth" to "Mom, look I lost my tooth!" He kept saying, "Mom, it's so tiny; I can't wait for my man tooth" Funny boy!